London Eye refurbishment work begins

Work has begun on a major upgrade to the London Eye, the iconic tourist attraction situated on the south bank of the River Thames.

The three year, £12.5m package of works will see each of the wheel’s 32 capsules removed one at a time and floated down the Thames to Tilbury Docks in Essex.

They’ll then travel by road to a workshop in Worcester where they’ll be upgraded to “enhance the customer experience” and increase the Eye’s environmental credentials. During the programme of works, a dummy capsule will be fitted to the wheel until the final refurbished capsule is returned.

Merlin Entertainment, the company which operates the Eye, says the work will ‘future proof’ the attraction.

The project team say they wanted to support Britain’s manufacturing industry. In addition to selecting a UK engineering company, all overseas component suppliers used in the project have subsidiary companies in the UK.

Merlin’s David Sharpe described the project as “a huge testament to the talent and industry we have here in Britain, with the large majority of companies working with us being local UK businesses. It’s very impressive to know that we have so much resource available and that we’re all working together to make this UK landmark even better.”